Harumichi Shibasaki was nearly 70 when he began making YouTube art tutorials from his quiet home in the Japanese countryside. Five years on, he has 1.4 million subscribers.
Unlike the attention-grabbing antics of most top YouTubers, the grandfather has won hearts with his calm, soothing manner, which fans say makes them feel “warm and peaceful.”
He has also built a global following thanks to the English subtitles on his videos demonstrating painting and sketch techniques, which sometimes feature his grandchildren and two cats.
Photo: AFP
“Hello. Shibasaki here. How’s everyone doing?” the gray-haired art instructor with glasses and a mustache says in Japanese, pausing to smile and wave.
The 74-year-old films everything himself for his channel “Watercolor by Shibasaki” using tripods, lighting and a smartphone or DSLR camera.
He is also active on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter, and said that being directly connected to the world is “like a dream.”
Photo: AFP
“We didn’t even have a TV at home when I was a child,” Shibasaki said near his home in a rural part of Chiba, outside Tokyo, where birdsong fills the air. “As someone from my generation, I didn’t expect there would ever be a time like this.”
His videos range from how to paint cherry blossoms to snapshots of daily life, such as cooking bamboo shoots dug up from his garden.
Like many successful YouTubers, his clips are peppered with banner and video ads, while big fans can send cash during livestreams or pay to access members-only footage.
It was Shibasaki’s son who first encouraged him to post on the site — a chance for the instructor with decades of experience to reach a global audience.
“I like teaching, I like chatting with everyone. I can talk for five, six hours,” Shibasaki said.
During the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shibasaki’s subscriber count soared.
In one April 2020 video he showed viewers how to sketch a smudgy, fluffy cat, saying he hoped drawing together would help them feel better while stuck at home.
A flood of comments in different languages called the video “calm and relaxing” and said that Shibasaki’s “kind” voice had left a “warm and peaceful” impression.
“Viewers say I have a really good voice, but I have no idea why,” he said, laughing.
People tell him that his slow, relaxed delivery reassures them, and some even see Shibasaki — who has undergone heart surgery six times — as an agony uncle.
Because of his health scares, “death has become a concrete mental image,” he said, meaning he can “truly understand” the problems people share with him.
Shibasaki loved painting from a young age, but as the only son of a farming family in Chiba, he expected his parents to ask him to take over their land.
However, overcome with the desire to move to Tokyo and study art at the age of 18, he rushed to ask his parents’ permission while they were hard at work.
“They looked back at me in the rice field and said I should go. I’m so grateful for that,” he said.
Shibasaki later became an art teacher and strived to make his advice easy to understand, just like in his videos.
“Painting is fun,” he said. “It’s a battle with myself to achieve perfection. It’s interesting, and there’s a sense of achievement.”
Shibasaki wants to continue painting as long as possible.
When artists get older, “their eyesight gets worse, their hands shake,” he said. “I’m going to turn 75, so I’ll only be able to draw properly for another five years or so, but in the meantime, if I can make paintings to leave behind, that’s what I want to do.”
Young Chinese, many who fear age discrimination in their workplace after turning 35, are increasingly starting “one-person companies” that have artificial intelligence (AI) do most of the work. Smaller start-ups are already in vogue in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, with rapidly advancing AI tools seen as a welcome teammate even as they threaten layoffs at existing firms. More young people in China are subscribing to the model, as cities pledge millions of dollars in funding and rent subsidies for such ventures, in alignment with Beijing’s political goal of “technological self-reliance.” “The one-person company is a product of the AI era,” said Karen Dai
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS